


The Picture of Walter Stricklander

by CorruptLimerence



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Changelings, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Hurt/Comfort, Takes place between episodes 6 and 7, UST, Unresolved Romantic Tension, at least Jim is mentioned a lot, if UST could be hugging, of Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 17:34:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14919834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorruptLimerence/pseuds/CorruptLimerence
Summary: The conversation that did not happen on screen and the only one that mattered. A powder keg of emotions sit side by side in Barbara Lake and Walter Strickler while Jim and his band of trollhunters hunt for Merlin's tomb. They couldn't avoid each other forever or the conversation they were doomed to share. Conversations like those are messy, an open wound bared to the person with the most power to cause pain. Strickler and Barbara's conversation starts where it ended all that time ago when a certain painting in the basement is discovered.





	The Picture of Walter Stricklander

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT: Thank you to the people who helped me identify the grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in the text! I was very tired when I ended up posting it! It should have fewer mistakes now!
> 
> I love this show so much. And I am so happy that we got this romance, especially in season three. But it always struck me that there was a scene missing. It went from Barbara telling Claire's parents and Toby's Nana: "He tried to kill me son" to her having the idea to comfortably and comically beat him with a broom. While I am not one to complain, I wanted to explore how they got there. I feel like I didn't get the all out yelling match with messy feelings we deserved. So I decided to write it!
> 
> I also took issue with Strickler telling Jim that he only came back to protect Barbara when there is literally a whole episode in season one dedicated to showing that Strickler cares about Jim.

Walter had worn many faces; and if Janus was the god of the Changelings it was a shame his namesake only invoked two. Changelings required dexterity of character after all. 

In the incalculable years he had lived as one of the Impure he had shuffled his faces and personalities to better deceive and survive. One could call him an expert in keeping himself alive among his other skills. Keeping others and putting their needs first...well...it was not in a Changeling’s nature. Their marginalization wrote selfishness into all their destinies. 

But he had no such excuses for what he had done for Barbara, he wasn’t a Changeling fresh in his stone flesh. No, he had worn this human face and evolved to match it for so long that he was a disgrace to his kind. He knew full well what he had done and why the blanket of tension between them was as thick as night. 

The Nunez’s and the Domzalski grandmother were preoccupied with their newfound knowledge of their children’s nocturnal activities. Thus, they were far too busy to absorb the coldness with which Barbara had treated him, and how he bowed his head and took it. 

The conversation in the living room was turning too heated. Mr. Strickler had been to enough parent-teacher conferences to know when to bow out for a breather. The moment he left the parents his shoulders slumped, his back sought support on the wall facing the basement door. Lamp light pooled from the living room entrance to barely reach the tip of his well kept shoes. He kept to the shadows, they were always a bit of a comfort, if not to think then to let the human guise down. 

He could do neither at the moment, and not by choice. All he could think of were the children on a quest they absolutely were not ready for.

Again. 

For a logical and, above all, scrutinizing mind Strickler was taken by the worry knotted in his chest. Even he convinced himself at time of his own heartlessness. 

Contrary to popular belief: Walter Strickler did care for Jim Lake JR. He had always been his favourite student. Bular hadn’t chosen to jeopardize Walter’s ambitions with Gunmar over any mortal child. 

Anxiety writhed like a fractious ball in his chest; it kept him in and around the crisis. Otherwise he might follow his base instinct to find a safe space and batten down the hatches. He pinched his eyes and wondered frustratingly if there was any coffee. Maybe Barbara would not mind if he made some for the lot of them.

Walter took a glance about. 

No Barbara in the kitchen, hallway, or living room. Where had she gone? 

A thought, but really more of an action, took root at the back of his mind. 

It wasn’t his place. 

It really really wasn’t. 

He shouldn’t go looking for her. 

Again, for such a scrupulous and smart man he did indeed commit a stunning quantity of stupidities where Barbara Lake was considered. It was hard to tell. His feet began to move at their own accord. After jiggling the handle the door to the basement the light definitely appeared on. The leather of his soles padded down the steps so as not to alarm a soul. 

Memories of a blundered confession to Barbara raked at his nerves only to freeze completely at the sound of her voice.

“-I told you I cannot take a shift-I know that we are short staffed but-” Barbara could be heard suppressing a grunt. Peeking over the bannister Strickler caught the view of her red hair casting a halo under a naked light bulb. Surrounding the doctor was a painting area complete with upright canvases. The subjects were indistinguishable from this vantage point on the stairs. 

He hadn’t known Barbara to be an artistically inclined individual? The information puzzled him, and as a naturally inquisitive person Walter made the apprehensive decision to take a couple steps forward. 

“Look, I have always taken every shift you could throw at me in Emergency since I was a medical intern.” Barbara continued firmly to her opponent on the phone. 

Walter ventured a few more steps until he hit the rough unfinished floor of the basement. “Rain or shine I was there. I think I’m entitled to a couple of personal days because I absolutely cannot make it.” 

Her voice tapered off to listen to whatever inane remark was fired back at her. With as much disdain as humanly possible, she pressed the end call button. She hadn't noticed him yet. 

Walter was glad she wasn’t looking at him. She paused at the sound of his breath catching. A moment nor a thousand could prepare him for the canvas staring back at him.

Nearly swallowing his own tongue, Walter took a shaking step back into the wall. 

“BARBARA?” His voice came out cracked and raw.

“WALT?! What the f-”Barbara whirled around and her phone clattered to the ground, her hands around her mouth to suppress a surprised yell. 

Staring back at him was a 6’ x 4’ oil painting of himself in trollform. His monstrous fangs bared, the yellow glow of his eyes surrounding a blood red iris. In a cacophony of greens and blues his hideousness faced him like a mirror from a nightmare. If the concrete wall of the Lake residence hadn’t been there he would have stumbled to his behind. 

“Jesus Christ-” Barbara’s head spun frantically looking for a tarp, a blanket, a sheet, or a large napkin to hide her open sore of a painting. A host of other canvases looked upon the panorama of his gruesome personage. Draal, ARGH, Blinky, and Barbara’s human knight in shining armor Jim stood as jury to his folkloric level of bestial. 

The machinations of his brain wheezed back to life. 

Vendel’s magic must have not worked completely. Or when he was killed, it wore off. 

Either or, it didn’t matter, the memories resurfaced and were now manifested in paint and linseed oil, much to his horror.

Once Barbara saw there was no way to cover her shame that immovable determination steeled her features and turned her hands into fists. 

“Is-is this how you remember me-?” Walter took a small step towards the panting. 

Seeing himself as Barbara remembered, it practically yanked his heart through his ribs. He was terrifying and ugly. The damage he had done to her, to them...it was permanent. Any daydream he had entertained about one day rekindling what they had, telling her who he really was, evaporated. Whether it be his ugliness, his generally deplorable actions, or as she put it, trying to kill her son, there was no way to gain any affection.

But he knew his. He knew that driving over here, he knew it when she let him past the threshold with a guarded stare. He had come anyways.

“It’s how I remembered. Period.” Barbara supplied acidically. He almost flinched. “It happens when several people are messing around with your head.” 

He took a step into the light, the shadows of the lone bulb casted his face in a most threatening light, he was sure. His fingers traced the image. 

What did it matter? 

When he had left Barbara the first time at least it was with the knowledge that she only remembered him to be an utter disappointment. Now it was with was with total certainty that she thought him a monster. 

If he had been true to his Changeling nature, this would have hurt less. And if he were a better man he would feel less pity for himself. It seemed he was no good at being either human or changeling, or at least pretending to be.

His head turned to Barbara, to-he didn't know? Plead? To ask forgiveness? To shy away? It was unclear even to himself what he wanted her to say, so his expression came out pained. 

If Barbara felt any mercy it didn’t show. She remained rooted to the spot. 

“You’re quite the talented painter.” He offered, his fingers still haphazardly touching the strokes. “-They’re very well-”

“Stop it.” Barbara turned away from him, a whole new set of shadows spun to obscure her face. Walter’s heart nearly stopped at the coldness. 

“Stop what?” He knew it, he knew he was asking for inevitable. He had always made things difficult for them. 

“The niceties, politeness, this is hard enough as it is without you trying to charm my guests or play the concerned gentlemen.” She crossed her arms. 

“I am concerned.” He asserted reservedly. Barbara, naturally, shot him a cutting look. 

“What would you prefer I be to you?” 

“When has what I wanted ever been a priority to you?” She took a step forward to him. 

“You contacted me for aid this evening and I came.” He supplemented clumsily. He could add training Jim, but his mother might not warm to the idea of essentially trying to kill him full force everyday. But only for practice. 

“You lied to me for months, you enchanted me so my son could never hurt you for fear of hurting me.” she tallied on her fingers. Two blotchy red spots appeared high on her cheeks. An accusatory finger stabbed into the knit of his sweater right above his heart. “You endangered my child’s life, you tried to kill him, and then you show your face here again thinking you can-?”

Anger and resentment crackled around her.

“You were the first person I trusted after Jim’s father left. Does that enormous leap of trust mean anything to you?” She practically growled. 

How did you answer something like-

“Clearly not,” She stated tersely. “And again, did I mention the assassin you sent after my son? Or the time you probably tried to murder him on one of our dates? God how do you even-”

“Barbara-” his hand reflexively reached up to her face.

“Don’t Barbara me!” She swatted his hand with her backhand and jabbed it into his chest.

At the contact green lightning sizzled between them like a chemical reaction. The two of them were bewildered, looking to see whose fault it was. Strickler glanced down to her finger pressed against the green and cold stone flesh of his chest. 

He could die, the earth could swallow him whole and he would thank whichever deity had made the move to do it. Walter stood before her in all his troll glory. A frisson of anxiety pooled in his stomach, in a split second he anticipated all her disgust, fear, and terror as embodied in that painting to look at him.

He did not breathe as he looked at her.

His transformation had done nothing to dim her rage. 

But her expression was not a snarl of disgust, nor open mouthed fear. Not as it had been last time in this basement. Maybe Barbara didn’t see it this way, but her anger was generous for this unknowably kind gesture. He welcomed it, she looked him for what he had done, not what he was. 

Ever the good doctor, Strickler thought sourly.

“You think this what makes you a monster?” Barbara spoke softly, no less dangerous, as she laid her hand flat to the cold of his chest. He did his best not to breathe, not to sink into the warmth of her palm. “It’s not. It’s not the changeling or the troll. Whatever part of you that was human is the monster. Why else would you string me along while trying to kill Jim?” 

Tangled sentiments and small weightless truths bubbled in his mouth. He never meant to kill Jim, but he had definitely given it his best effort multiple times. His ambition came first in all those encounters, but he had made sure to help him where he could since then. He wasn’t proud of trying to incapacitate the trollhunter. 

Thank god that Strickler was not stupid enough to voice those flimsy contradictions to a mother. Especially not while still in troll form. 

“I’m sorry-” His voice was a whisper, the sound coming from somewhere imperceptibly depthless. With it spilled regret and guilt. It stopped Barbara short mid thought. 

“It’s a little late for that.” She responded, not as irate as before, but nonetheless pissed. 

He nodded, self-condemnation bleeding into the bow of his head. 

“I know.” He whispered. 

She should not have believed him, not since he could lie so easily. But there was nothing of that smooth and easy banter of his for it to taste like duplicity. No, he stood before her, jagged, and knowing he was a condemned man. His horns and fangs felt even more feral than she remembered. 

Barbara’s breath came out ragged, her hand like a sharpened blade ready to pass judgment over his chest. Barbara’s eyes flickered from that handup to his face. The red stayed high in her cheeks the longer he gazed at her with that sad look. She was better than this, she was above thinking that his look reminded her of the hopeless families waiting for good news in the ER. 

Her eyes connected to his, daring him to breathe. 

His gaze followed her arresting glare down to the hand still over his chest. Around that one little finger was a metal ring.

“Iron?” His gravelly voice broke the silence. A new weight of guilt settled upon his chest. Barbara shook her head out of whatever trance that caused her to look at him with that expression for so long.

She retracted her finger and so the green flash returned him to his human guise. 

“Yeah.” Her monosyllabic response served as a tight punch to the teeth . Walter lost that shred of hope gained from the current that thrummed between them a moment ago. 

“A quick internet search told me how to take care of myself after I woke up and started remembering everything,” Barbara said, her tone glacial. 

He shook his head dizzily. “I see. You felt the need to protect yourself from me and my kind.” 

He was convinced that she would scalpel him here. That came out wrong, of course she should want to protect herself. Strickler was supposed to be articulate, why could he not articulate properly for her? He ran a hand through his hair; he racked his millenium old brain for something to say. 

“Do you want me to leave?” He finally breathed. What more could he say or do? He had forced his way into her life before. It was enough, that he understood now.

Barbara wrinkled her nose and her mouth fell open; just when she thought she knew what to expect of him he threw chivalry at her. She recoiled and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“I called you here because I had no other choice, you are one of the only people besides Blinky with enough knowledge to help Jim. I swallowed my pride and asked you here.” She insisted with measured aggravation. The next words might as have well been pulling teeth. “I would ask you to please...stay.” 

Ah. The cards were laid on the table then. It is as he thought. He nodded his head. 

“I’ll do everything in my power to help your son.” Walter resolved to pledge himself to her son’s life there and then. “And when he has vanquished Gunmar, laid waste to his Gum-Gum army, and brought this millenia old war to and end-I will leave you both in peace.” 

“Good.” She responded.

Neither left their intimate tête-à-tête. 

“I’ll be upstairs if you need me…” Walter coughed awkwardly. He turned to the steps-

“Wait.” Barbara gritted through her teeth.

Strickler could see her biting the inside of her cheek.

“This quest to find Merlin…” Barbara ventured. “What is Jim not telling me?”

What a precarious position she put him in. 

“He might have to destroy his amulet in order to find him.” Strickler breathed.

“WHAT?” Barbara exclaimed.

“The gamble is that if they do locate Merlin he will be able to re-make the Trollhunter’s Amulet.” He huffed. “The risk is that Gunmar, Angor Rot, and a possessed Draal could be after Jim, Merlin, or both of them.”

“What happens if he can’t recreate the Amulet? What if he sacrifices it and they find an empty tomb?” Barbara’s mind was clearly going a mile a minute. Strickler controlled his own demeanor as to not further alarm her.

“If they did not set forth to discover Merlin, the world might perish as a consequence.” He began, every word chosen to convey as much as possible. But she was also a grown woman, she could handle the truth in them. “If they do find Merlin and he cannot re-forge the amulet, we are doomed. I’m afraid it is a high risk quest. But it is still the best option the trollhunters have.”

“Is there a situation that doesn’t end with everyone dying?” Barbara asked wide eyed and slightly panicked. 

“Unfortunately, in dire times like these mortal peril is a high possibility, no matter which path taken.” He said.

“How do we know if Jim has taken the right path?” Her hand absentmindedly went to steady her chest. “How do we know that this quest won’t stop his path short?”

How did one soften these truths to someone you cared for? Strickler wanted to do right by Jim, let his mother live in ignorance, let her live with the best possible scenario. However, his pledge to his life and hers made it implicit that he would not lie. Not to her, not again.

“We don’t.” He answered quietly. Before her panic could crest he continued: “But Jim was chosen for this, it is his destiny. He, the amulet, mankind, and trollkind are beckoned to a higher good. Finding the way there was always his burden. Whatever path his judgment chooses is the right one. All we must do is support him and believe in his quest, just as you have.”

“How can you be sure?” Barbara’s voice lost it’s serrated edge when it came to Jim and in turn softened Strickler’s own fear.

“Didn’t you know Ms. Lake?” He gave her a wan smile, but she winced at the sudden formality of the address. “Your son is brilliant. He is my top and most favourite pupil.”

She looked at him, shocked yet sensitive. Somewhere along the conversation, their tension withered enough for warmth to bloom between them. Walter ambled up whatever courage a self-centered Changeling could. 

“Jim and I had a bit of a row recently.” He admitted. “He thought I only came back to Arcadia for you, to protect you. In truth, that was only a part of my motivation. I came back for him as well.”

It was Barbara’s turn to be left impotent and standing in the middle of their raggedy basement. 

“Even when I was in Gunmar’s service, he and his son pit me against Jim knowing that I held affection for my favourite student.” He did not feel courageous at all saying this, he was nauseous and terrified of the human woman that stood before him. “But I came back because when I had no allies, left at the mercy of the trolls he stepped up and honorably protected me. He has more mercy, compassion, and ability than any troll or man. He is the only one alive worthy to wield Daylight.” 

Barbara’s eyes widened at the words that extolled the greatness of her son. If only Barbara knew she was the great woman behind a soon to be great man. 

“I have done the horrible things you said, and many more deplorable deeds that would put off any mercy. But I want to do my part to kill Gunmar and make sure your son lives.” He was about to lay a hand on her shoulder but thought better. “I’ve trained him and passed on every ounce of knowledge and skill I have to ensure that.”

Barbara shook herself out of the moment.

“Wait? Training?” She questioned him. Her eyebrows shot up. Walter swore internally in several dead languages. “What do you mean training?”

“Jim, Ms Nomura, and I have been taking time everyday to train him in combat. It is meant to sharpen his skills against troll opponents like-”

“You mean fighting him, and trying to kill him?” She demanded. God, he hoped the Nunez's and Nana were still chatting loudly upstairs and could not hear them.

“Well-not for real-”

“God damn it, Walter!” She rubbed her eyes. “I have to worry about every troll, goblin, and god knows what killing him without you taking up your old hobby of trying to murder him!” 

“I am not trying to kill him, Barbara! I am simply trying to prepare him for someone who will!” Walter fired back. 

“I thought Blinky was training him?!” Barbara exclaimed. 

“Jim thought he was lacking in that area and came to me!” Walter answered but whatever backbone he had in this argument melted. “I know things Blinkous does not, and I understand Jim’s hunger to be prepared for every dark thing Gunmar might hurl at him.”

Barbara was rarely, if ever, wearing a despairing face. Her determination from the ER surgery table was a switch always set to on. That determination cracked to reveal that despair. The feeling that she may not ever see her son again reared its head and speared her through the lungs. 

“What’s wrong, I thought you were supportive of Jim’s troll hunting?” 

“I hate it.” The back of her hand stifled the sound of her throat closing. Her shoulders crumbled forward. Protectiveness and unfettered sadness washed over him as he saw her fall to pieces. Walter’s hands immediately flew around her shoulders.

“I only support it because he needs to support everyone else. He has no one else but me. I have to be okay with my baby boy sticking his neck out for everyone. But what about him-” She wiped her nose on the back of her wrist

Something in her broke, and he was not supposed to see it. It was for no one to see her like this except an empty house at night or a deserted hospital hallway. The loneliness of Barbara Lake opened up and swallowed her. No one was supposed to see Barbara Lake lose hope or cry. Bit by bit, those reigned in rasps dissolved into weeping. He stood there shocked.

“But I hate it Walt, I hate it.” Barbara wept. “He’s supposed to be going to theatre rehearsals, flunking math, and being bad at talking to girls. Not carrying a war on his back.”

Her sobs wracked her body. Walter Strickler gathered her in his arms and crushed her to him. On contact, that ever present current between them crackled, but was immediately lost in the shaking of invincible Barbara Lake’s weeping. His heart searched, almost hoping it was an ailment he could fix, anything he could do to stop her weeping, and fix all her hurts.

Barbara continued to weep into her hands which again were glued to his chest. Every wracked breath heaved an outpouring of grief. 

“I see so many people come into the ER, so many people put under the knife not to come back.” She cried. “Their bones crushed under trucks, their skin peeled off, their organs ruptured.”

“That won’t happen to Jim.” Walter tried to comfort her.

“How do you know?” Her voice jaggedly cut into him. “If anything happens to him I’d die.”

Her crying began anew, only natural. His throat closed, pain ebbed through his chest, for Barbara, for Jim. 

“Jim shouldn’t have to carry this much responsibility, he’s just a boy, he’s my baby.” Barbara sobbed. 

With an arm firmly around her waist Strickler smoothed her hair, his cheek pressed to the crown of her head. He whispered something to her in his low drawl, words like: “it will be okay.” and “Nothing will hurt Jim or you, I promise.” 

Her arms slowly relinquished their protective cage around her red and tired eyes to snake around Strickler. Beyond the pain of not having Jim safe and sound, she felt the hatred running under her skin for a man that she should hate but yet still, somehow after all this time, was still an anchor. 

The feeling of his hands in contact with her waist and her hair: it shouldn’t have calmed her, it shouldn’t have worked as a sedative. But in a world that only seemed to be getting bigger and fuller of monsters and magic, the cold was driven out by his nearness. For a moment, the world stopped spinning, and maybe she wouldn’t have to face the uncertainty of Jim’s fate alone. 

Walter listened to her weeping taper off, her breathing still ragged, her fingertips like grappling hooks in his back. It should have felt like a triumph, to have Barbara so close, but all he could feel was dread. Dread that things were so dire that Barbara Lake came to tears. 

Where her cheek lay on his chest, she turned so her face was pressed into the familiar feeling of his sweater. The smell brought back a hundred memories, easy conversation, romantic evenings, and laughter. They could almost pretend that this was a regular domestic spat. 

Strickler took in a breath.

“Take heart, Clymene, Mother of Atlas.” He whispered into her hair. She shivered at his voice. “Jim has the weight of the world on his shoulders. But he is no longer a boy, and he is about to become a man. His shoulders have grown, there is no other man who can do it. And he is already worthy of the mantle he carries. He will be victorious. I will do everything in my power to make sure of it.”

In their embrace, her eyes pierced his expression from underneath her eyelashes.

“And what’s in it for you?” She asked, still guarded, still evaluating and maneuvering. 

“Nothing.” The truth shocked even him, but it slipped out easier than breathing. “I don’t want anything from Jim, or you. I just want you to be happy.”

Barbara shrugged backwards and examined his features. Her eyes were red from weeping, bags rimmed the underside of her eyes, all to be framed by her askew glasses. 

He stood in front of her, vulnerable, and willing to face her judgment.

“You mean it...don’t you?” Barbara murmured. Her eyes still searched him, their resolve to be defensive melted to something more secretive, more tender. 

“More than anything.” He admitted, pleaded, pledge, and promised. 

Her expression turned to pained again, and this time she let herself collapse into his arms. He didn’t move to hold him, he didn’t connive her to get it. 

She chose him. 

Her head rubbed into his shoulder, her hands clasped at the small of his back, something in their language spoke of closeness. 

Strickler tried to acclimate to this, his head spinning, veins singing and his his ears rung he hugged her back.

“I’m so tired Walt.” She said. “I feel so alone. Everywhere I look there is something out to get Jim, or a new memory that crops up, another monster at my door. And I still have to go to work and keep my family running.” 

His hands rubbed circles into her back; he could feel her shoulders unclenching.

“You’re not alone,” he said firmly. So firmly Barbara thought that maybe he had magicked the truth of it into existence. He took his moment, a moment of infinitesimal solace to say the words that laid buried like a hatchet since he left her on Vendel’s stone table. 

“I am not here to win your forgiveness, heavens knows I would not deserve it. But I will still endeavor to be a man who could be worthy of your forgiveness.” He whispered into her hair.

When she looked up at him again, this time it took his breath and shattered it. It had been hatred, rage, sympathy, tenderness, and now something else. The wideness of her eyes, the slightly open mouth with her fingers on his ribs told him something different. Their breaths seemed almost louder than their heart beats. That current returned with full force with enough power to knock them down. But the closeness of their bodies, the closed circuit of their arms around each other kept that current safely churning in their skin.

“I missed you, Walt.”, Barbara said.

“I missed you too, Barbara.” Walter replied immediately.

Something of reason returned to the ever poised and inscrutable Stricklander. He saw that her cheeks were warm and there was very little space between them.

He would not take advantage of her loneliness, or her despair. 

With a step back he re-established a minimum safe distance from her. A zone in which he could think and breathe without it being her he thought of or her shampoo that he smelled. Barbara was startled at first.

His hand circled her temple and rested affectionately at her cheek.

“When was the last you ate?” he asked. 

She shook her head; residue confusion from him pulling away cleared. “I had some coffee an hour ago?” 

“That isn’t food.” He tried to make light of it, he jutted his chin at the stairs. “I can go make you something.” 

“Don’t be silly, Walt.” She tried to smile.

“You’re the physician, Doctor Lake, wouldn’t you say that you have gone long enough without proper sustenance and that caffeine can dehydrate you?” He bantered easily. That earned him a chuckle. She rolled her eyes with a closed mouth grin.

“Fine, then I’ll make us something.” Barbara shrugged. 

“No offence intended, Barbara, but if there anyone is making food, it will be me.” Strickler tittered. 

Barbara knocked her elbow to his ribs. “I’ll allow it this once.”

Walter Strickler felt fate and fortune smiled on him as Barbara gave him permission to take her hand and lead her to the steps. Just as his shoe was about to hit the first step she stopped cold. 

“Walt.” She stopped him. He gazed back at her only to appear a little lost. 

She padded back to her work station and put a hand on the canvas that rendered his likeness. 

“It's how I remembered, months of worth memories woke up from a deep sleep. Its how I remembered that you didn't just leave me. That it was worse than that.” She conceded. She held out her hand for him to come over. They locked fingers and faced the painting. The proximity to one another felt like two trees in a gale force wind keeping each other upright. “I woke up with all these colors and shapes in my memory, like I had seen them without my glasses. The more I painted them the sharper they came into focus.”

Her blue glare met his and she smiled timidly.

“I hated you for a long time, but I was never afraid of you. Shocked and surprised, yes.” She squeezed his hand. “But you never scared me, you never disgusted me. Ever. Do you understand me?”

His jaw must have gone slack, his eyes must have filled with unchecked emotion because she put a palm to his face and stroked his temple with her thumb. He nodded. He didn’t deserve it, but like he said: he would try to. The hand at his face and the loving gaze still promised nothing of the future. Just as well, when it was so unpredictable and dark.

“And I don’t think you are a monster, just some of the things you have done.” She clarified. The honesty should have hurt, but didn’t hurt the way they might have a year ago. There was nothing as bracing as the straightforward words of someone who saw you for what you were and did not flinch away. 

He squeezed her hands back. “Don’t say that too quickly, Jim might need a monster.”

That current again sizzled where their hands met. The world still felt enormous, it still felt dark and fraught with monsters writhing in dark corners. The monsters did not stop their hurried onslaught to the world above. There was no way of knowing the fate they were all careening to, or of knowing if they were to live. 

But for the time being, in the Lake residence basement the fear and unknown didn’t matter. 

The two of them stood together in face of it and no longer felt alone.


End file.
